Fic: 'For Love is Strong as Death' 1/?

[sakuri69]

Title: For Love is Strong as Death

Rating: PG-13 (subject to change)

Characters/Pairings: TFW. Sam/Gabe, eventual Dean/Cas slash.

Genre: A strange cross between humour and angst.

Summary: Four months after the apocalypse that wasn’t, Sam, Castiel and Gabriel are brought back to life at the same time and place, leaving Sam to deal with two suddenly human angels and the fact that he can never see his brother again...

A/N: AU from 5x22, this fic discounts Season 6 entirely. The title is taken from a Biblical quotation. Uh, Bobby didn't die.


Sam woke up.

That was the first clue something had gone wrong.

He was pretty sure, somewhere in the back of his head, that one didn’t get to just ‘wake up’ after hurling one’s self into the Pit alongside two archangels intent on Earth’s destruction. So, naturally, it was somewhat unexpected to blink his eyes open, only to squint them shut again against the light of a winter-white sky. He groaned and forced himself to roll over, his hand pressing into frost-stiffened grass. The presence of grass at all was a little shocking. Sam wasn’t an expert or anything, but he didn’t think Hell was the kind of place to have grass.

It was entirely possible he was avoiding the bigger issues at hand here.

“Dean?” The name came automatically to his lips, his brother always the first thing he looked to in any situation. And Dean had been the very last thing he’d seen before falling, what felt like mere moments ago. Dean should be here.

But he wasn’t, Sam knew instinctively, feeling his stomach twist. Looking around, he realised he wasn’t even in Stull anymore. There was no cemetery, no Impala, no Dean. There was, in fact, nothing for as far as he could see but fields silvered with frost and mist.

Crap, he thought eloquently.

It wasn’t the strangest thing that had ever happened - not by a long shot - so it was mostly a matter of habit that had him hauling himself to his feet, dusting himself down as he went. Still, even waking up alone in the freezing wilderness seemed far too good to be true when the alternative was Hell, so he couldn’t really help but wait nervously for the other shoe to drop.

He didn’t have to wait long.

He turned around on the spot, wondering vaguely which direction would be the best to start walking in, when his eyes suddenly caught sight of some flash of colour other than the relentless silver-green.

And Christ, Sam would know that shade of tan anywhere.

He stumbled forward without conscious thought, slip-sliding down a grassy slope towards the blessedly familiar figure of Castiel. It was, admittedly, slightly less reassuring to realise the angel wasn’t moving, was in fact looking about as comatose as the time he’d pushed his angelic powers to their very limits. His limbs were sprawled haphazardly around him, as though his strings had been cut and he’d just crumpled. The grass around him was free of frost, maybe even a little scorched closest to the angel’s body. But probably the strangest aspect of the whole scene was the randomly placed and rather mundane looking travel bag lying beside him.

Dismissing that for the moment, however, Sam cursed quietly as he knelt down next to the angel. He suffered the sudden, intense memory of Lucifer’s cold fury, snapping his fingers while Sam screamed inside his own head and Castiel exploded in a red shower of gore. Sam very nearly recoiled as the vision pressed heavy behind his eyes, but he forced himself to reach out and shake the angel’s shoulder instead.

“Cas! Cas, c’mon man, Dean’ll kill me if I let you slip into a coma or freeze to death or something...” He didn’t give voice to the fact that Dean might kill him anyway, having already watched Sam make a fine paste of his not-quite-boyfriend.

Sam was getting to the point where he was seriously ready to freak the fuck out just thinking about it all when Cas finally deigned to wake up. The angel stirred uneasily, scrunching up his face in a manner his stoic features usually didn’t allow, then blinked dazedly up at Sam.

That lasted all of two seconds, and then Castiel was scrambling away from him so fast Sam barely had time to react. Cas looked wild-eyed, and Sam half expected an angel sword to come flying at him any second now.

“Woah! Cas! It’s me!” He threw up his hands in what he hoped was a placating gesture, or possibly just abject surrender. “No Lucifer, I swear. Just me.”

The angel’s blue eyes didn’t get any less intent as he tilted his head to the side a fraction, considering. “Sam?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Cas, it’s me.”

Castiel glanced over his shoulder fleetingly, as if reluctant to take his watchful, wary stare away from Sam for too long. “...Where are we?”

“Was kinda hoping you could tell me that, actually.”

“I... am not certain,” he admitted after a few long moments of thought. “I can’t quite seem to get my bearings.”

Sam reached up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Right. Well, are we even on Earth, do you know?” Considering the circumstances, it was a perfectly valid question.

“I believe so, yes. How we were returned here, however...”

Sam opened his mouth to respond - to ask one of the countless questions buzzing in his head, perhaps - but he didn’t get the chance. Someone else spoke over him.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me...”

Both he and Cas turned sharply, looking up at the crest of the hill Sam had previously descended. Standing there was one of the last people either might have expected to see.

Gabriel looked thoroughly nonplussed as he moved towards them, and more than a little bedraggled. “I knew it,” the archangel proclaimed scathingly. “I knew something like this would happen if I got involved. I died, didn’t I?”

“Uhm...” Sam answered, helpfully.

Gabriel just nodded like that explained everything. “Figures. My own fault, really, associating with Winchesters.” His amber eyes flashed with something like accusation, which Sam thought was a little unfair, before the archangel glanced around with feigned disinterest. “Speaking of, where is your lesser half?”

“He’s -” But Sam had to cut off abruptly, because the truth was he had no idea where Dean was. Hell, he had no idea where they were at this moment in time. He looked helplessly at Castiel, only to see his own bemusement reflected in blue eyes.

Gabriel took this as his cue to let out a noise of utter scorn. “Oh, come on! You’re not telling me that of all of us, Dean ‘Deathwish’ Winchester was the only one to survive the apocalypse! How is that even fair?!”

“Shut up, Gabriel,” Sam snapped automatically, annoyed. “Look, do you have any idea what’s going on here?”

The smaller angel only shrugged. “Nope. Last thing I remember was Luci sticking a sword through my guts - which, by the way, hurt like a bitch. So would one of you chuckleheads like to fill me in on what I missed?”

Sam didn’t have the patience or the inclination to give an in-depth description of exactly how downhill things had gone after that, so he said simply, “I said yes to the Devil.” After pausing just long enough for Gabriel to gape incredulously at him, he added, “Then I threw myself into the Pit and dragged both your brothers with me. Woke up here about five minutes ago.”

Gabriel, for the first time ever, looked truly stunned. He opened his mouth but seemingly couldn’t bring himself to say anything.

Sam turned his back on him, addressing Cas instead. “Okay. So. We’re alive. ...Right? I mean, we seem pretty alive...”

“It would seem a reasonable conclusion. Perhaps... Perhaps my Father decided to restore those of us who died by Lucifer’s hand.”

Behind him, Gabriel let out an inelegant snort. “You better hope that’s what’s going on, little bro, because I swear to Dad, if someone’s sold their soul yet again, I will be very angry. I, for one, am not doing this dance all over again.”

Sam winced, secretly hoping against hope that that wasn’t the case. He was almost completely certain that Dean wouldn’t do something that stupid a second time. After all, Dean had made him a promise. Sam had made his brother swear up and down that if he lived through the final battle he’d go back to Lisa and Ben and finally have the Apple Pie life he deserved. Dean had promised, and no matter how much of a thoughtless jerk he could be sometimes, Dean had never in his life intentionally broken a promise to his little brother. Sam didn’t think he’d start now, and that meant Dean couldn’t possibly have anything to do with their abrupt reappearance in the world, because right now Dean was living it up in suburbia with his ready-made family and his shot at normality and his... and...

Cold abruptly settled in Sam’s stomach as he realised something.

He looked at Cas, blinking in shock at his revelation. “Dude, we can’t go back.”

The angel cocked his head. “Go back where, Sam?”

He raised a hand to run anxiously through his hair, distress finally breaking through the numb surrealism of the whole predicament. “To Dean. Cas, God... He’s happy. He’s got Lisa and... and a kid. We can’t just turn up and drag him back into this fucked up life all over again.”

“Oh here it comes,” Gabriel scoffed from the sidelines, checking his non-existent watch. “The patented Winchester Angst, right on schedule. And you’ve only been alive for ten whole minutes, Sammy. New record!”

He was largely ignored.

Castiel frowned disapprovingly. “Your brother would want to know you’re safe, Sam. You know that. To allow him to go on believing -”

“No. Stop.” He held up a hand, took a breath. “Cas, think about it. Dean... He deserves this. You know he deserves this, after everything he’s done. He finally has a normal life, he’s safe, he’s with a woman he loves. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to be the one who takes that away from him.”

It was a low blow and Sam knew it as he watched the angel’s face completely shut down at mention of Dean being in love with someone. Sam didn’t care. He had to put a quick stop to the angel fluttering off and crash landing back into his brother’s domestic bliss, and he’d do it by any means necessary.

Castiel hunched his shoulders and straightened his spine and, at last, nodded once. “Yes. Of course. I was being... inconsiderate.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes, unimpressed by the whole performance. “...Uh huh. Anyway, much as I’ve enjoyed this little catch-up, I think I’ll be on my way now. People to see and things to do now that I’m back from the dead. Heck, you two have done this before, you know how it is.” He grinned crookedly, then snapped his fingers loudly in the winter silence.

Everyone waited.

After a few long seconds the mischievous expression dropped from Gabriel’s face and he snapped again. Still nothing happened.

“Uhm, Gabr-”

“Shut up,” the archangel interrupted, too busy glaring at the hand that was still snapping with increasing desperation.

Sighing, Sam left him to it as he turned to Cas. “How’re your angel powers feeling? Can you fly?”

Castiel closed his eyes serenely, looking vaguely statue-like with his absolute stillness. It was surreal counterpoint to the background hysterics Gabriel was currently having, his frantic snapping having devolved into claps and curse words violent enough to make even Sam wince.

Eventually Castiel opened his eyes again. “I cannot. I... feel very much like I did when I woke up in the hospital.”

Sam blinked. “You’re human again?”

“...Hopefully it will prove a temporary condition.”

He sighed for the second time. “Perfect.” Taking yet another look around, he considered his options.

He had no idea how long they’d all been dead. It could be minutes, months or years. Fuck, for all he knew it could be god damn centuries. That’d be just typical.

He had no idea where he was or even, if he was honest, where he was supposed to go. Wasn’t like he had anywhere to call ‘home’ other than the Impala and wherever Dean was - and they were both, for previously mentioned reasons, out of bounds. He supposed there was Bobby’s, maybe. Or he could just start from scratch, find his way to the nearest town or city and just pick up where he’d left off - only, y’know, without his brother.

“Why the fuck would He do this to me?!” Gabriel suddenly shrieked, his furious incredulity rending the frigid air.

And that was another thing Sam had no idea about. Here he was in the company of two suddenly powerless angels who may or may not be stuck like that, at least one of whom had no fucking clue about how to be human. What the hell was he supposed to do with that?! Take them with him? Okay, Castiel he could deal with. He might be Dean’s personal angel but it wasn’t like he and Sam weren’t also friends - after a fashion, anyway. He could get along with Cas. The angel might be nerdy and angsty and sometimes he might get a little bug-eyed when he did his whole Super Serious Angel Business routine, but he was still Cas. Sam kind of owed him.

But Gabriel?! Seriously?!

Gabriel, who was busy throwing the world’s biggest hissy fit right there in front of them without a trace of shame.

Sam had to look away, because some things were just embarrassing. His eyes landed instead on the randomly placed travel bag that had been lying next to Castiel. With a frown, he crouched down next to it.

It took a moment, but when recognition came, he blinked in surprise. It was the exact same bag he’d had with him back before he’d... well, died. The exact same bag he’d hauled in and out of the Impala’s trunk and into a thousand motel rooms. He yanked the zipper open and peered inside, strangely bewildered to find his own mundane possessions. The laptop, one spare pair of jeans, a number of shirts and hoodies, some fraudulent credit cards that probably weren’t safe to use anymore, and Ruby’s knife.

“...The hell?!”

“It would seem our Father has seen fit to provide for you upon your return,” Castiel observed from where he was hovering at Sam’s shoulder.

Sam snorted and wondered why God hadn’t seen fit to drop them all off somewhere inhabited, instead, or why He hadn’t given the angels back their powers, or even, hell, why He hadn’t just stopped the Apocalypse before they’d all died. It seemed to Sam that if God really was responsible for their mass resurrection, He was doing a half-assed job of it.

But that might be the disillusionment talking.

He shouldered the bag with a huff, glancing askance at his not-so-angelic companions. “So. Any preference on which way we’re headed?”

xxx

It turned out they were in Wisconsin, of all places. The damn Cheese State. God had a stupid sense of humour.

Sam stole the first car they came across.

(As it happened, they came across it only after a two hour trek that was, all things considered, better left unmentioned. Suffice to say that if he ever again had to listen to Gabriel bitch about something as mundane as walking being beneath the dignity of angels, since they should just be able to snap their fingers and BAMF their way halfway around the globe if they felt like - well it would be an eternity too soon.)

He settled for physically hauling Gabriel into the backseat of their newly liberated vehicle - not at all above using his size advantage while the archangel was without his superpowers - kicking the door shut with perhaps more violence than was necessary, and storming around to take his seat behind the wheel. Cas had shotgun, and after taking one careful sidelong glance at the fixed expression Sam wore, didn’t even comment on the immorality of grand theft auto.

xxx

Dean had once sheepishly confessed that he’d taken Castiel to a brothel, of all places, and that he’d tried to get the angel drunk while there, buying generous quantities of any alcohol Cas had deigned to drink - only to find it had done jack shit to his sobriety. Sam might have considered the tale an exaggeration, that weird habit Dean had of bitching enthusiastically about angelic freakishness while secretly sort of being impressed by it - he had, after all, once seen for himself Castiel stumbling into their motel room hung over and still drunk. But he also remembered Jo and Ellen laughing incredulously as they’d sworn up and down that Cas had done a full line of shots without batting an eyelid. Sam had eventually hypothesised that angels could become intoxicated, on occasion, but only if and when they applied some serious effort to the task.

So it was... jarring, to say the least, to see Castiel hunched dejectedly into his trenchcoat after only one beer. His forearms were braced heavily on the bar and he was staring, unblinking and uninterested, at the rows of coloured bottles which lined the opposite wall. Apparently Castiel was a morose drunk, and he was doing nothing at all to improve Sam’s already dark mood. For the most part, he was doing his best to ignore the sulking presence on his left, but that only left him with Gabriel on the other side, and oddly enough the hedonistic archangel-cum-pagan-god was not proving to be the fabulous company his infamous reputation might suggest. He was currently scowling into a fruity red concoction of a drink that even Sam had been embarrassed to purchase.

They’d stopped in the first town they’d come to, at the first bar they’d driven past, and Sam had spent two hours hustling cash at the pool tables while the angels watched like two abandoned puppies. He’d felt Dean’s absence like a missing limb, constantly out of joint without the scripted banter that usually accompanied their cons, and he’d played only long enough to earn enough money for a motel room and then given in to the temptation to take the edge off things with a beer or three before they left. So what if he was self-medicating; he figured alcohol had to be healthier than demon blood. Besides, he was newly back from the dead, again, without his brother or the slightest trace of familiarity, except for two dependant angels who unnerved him at the best of times. Someone could just damn well cut him some slack, thank you very much.

But as if to purposely thwart him, the archangel suddenly slapped a hand down on the bar. “Oh, for the love of- I think I need to pee again! How do you humans have time to do anything but constantly pass disgusting bodily fluids?!”

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose hard, eyes squeezed shut. “Gabriel, please... please shut up.” It had been bad enough the first time, when he’d actually had to graphically explain to an otherworldly celestial being exactly how the human digestive system worked, and the etiquette involved in dealing with it.

“This is ridiculous,” was the only response he got, hissed directly into ear, because apparently Castiel wasn’t the only angel with no clear concept of personal space. “I did everything He could have wanted. I was a card carrying member of your stupid Team Free Will! Alright, fine, so I was a little late to the game, but I mean...” He broke off for a moment, taking an angry sip of his sparkly drink. “Even slumming it down here I was still doing my job, you know? Unlike some I could mention. Is it too much to ask for - oh I don’t know - maybe a little dignity in death?”

Sam glared at him, annoyed. “You really think that little of us that you’d rather be dead than human?”

“Oh, don’t go getting your panties in a twist. All the angels you’ve met, you want to lecture me on superiority? No, Sammy-boy, I happen to like your strange little race - for the most part. But that doesn’t mean I want to be one of you.” He looked down at his own hand in disgust, like he could actually see the humanity on him.

Sam opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by a dismissive snort from Castiel. He and Gabriel blinked, unaccustomed to any third party input to the almost constant sniping that had been going on since they’d all woken up that morning. They both looked at him expectantly.

Castiel seemed surprised by their sudden attention, halfway through lifting another beer to his mouth.

“Got something to say, bro?”

“No, Gabriel. Please feel free to continue discussing your deep aversion to being human, despite spending the past several centuries, perhaps millennia, obsessively submerging yourself in their cultures and lifestyles, pretending to be one of them -”

“Woah, woah, wait up! I was pretending to be their god, not one of them!” Gabriel was visibly bristling, but it seemed there was something missing from his show of pique. Maybe it was that, usually, when he was at his archangel - or even trickster - best, Sam could half imagine power gathered in close around him, invisible wings held high above his head. Now, though, with Gabriel so startlingly human, he just looked ludicrously like a pissed off short guy holding a girly drink. It made Sam want to smirk a little, amused to see Gabriel shift his shoulders like he was trying to resettle ruffled feathers. “I’ll have you know I’d make a terrible human, anyway, which is why I never tried to be one.”

Castiel, as poker faced as ever but nowhere near as focused behind the eyes, shrugged distractedly. “You made a terrible angel, too, if it helps.”

Sam immediately scoffed a sharp and inappropriate laugh into the back of his hand, too shocked to do anything else.

Gabriel just gaped, struck wordless for a rare moment. “...Excuse me?! How is that possibly supposed to help? And also: mean!”

The younger angel took a drink while he considered his response. “After Lucifer and his elect departed Heaven, you were among the first angels to willingly Fall to Earth. You refused to take up the considerable responsibilities of an archangel while our home was in chaos. Instead you’ve spent the time since then impersonating not only humans and common tricksters, but the pagan god Loki himself - a title to which you have no right.”

“Uhm, Cas...?” Sam interjected hesitantly, fully aware that Gabriel’s fingers were twitching around his glass like they wanted nothing more than to snap a thunderbolt into existence that would leave Castiel little but a smear on the barstool. “I think it’s time to call it a night.”

Gabriel, however, ignored his efforts at diplomacy. “Oh, well if that isn’t just the pot calling the kettle Fallen!”

“I’m not familiar with that idiom-”

“It means you’re a whinging little hypocrite, brother, because I distinctly remember you shucking your responsibilities, disobeying your orders, all on the word of a human. Dean Winchester said jump and you were already in the air before you could think to ask how high, right?”

“At least my defiance was not born of cowardice. You, Gabriel, were one of the greatest among us, and you chose to hide yourself away rather than do your duty, spend your time in self-indulgence and denial rather than-”

“Hey, I was still doing what I was supposed to, even as a trickster. Delivering justice and all that-”

“Your ‘justice’ was petty and out of proportion and mostly for your own entertainment. So yes, Gabriel, I personally believe you make a terrible angel. But it would seem you were never very far from human.”

Gabriel jerked as if he’d been slapped, and Sam knew it really was time to intervene. What had been a vaguely amusing spat between siblings was quickly turning into Castiel going for his brother’s throat, and Sam had no idea what had gotten into him. This wasn’t Cas thoughtlessly referring to him as an abomination, this was active hostility.

He stood up, placing his larger frame between the two while he dug in his pockets for cash. “Okay, definitely time to go. Why don’t we just-”

Gabriel leaned around him, expression deadly calm. “You are out of line, Castiel.”

The other angel hitched a shoulder, also standing. “One way or another, Gabriel, you are no longer my superior.” And then, without another word, he turned and headed for the door. Sam really hoped he was going to wait in the car for them and not just disappear melodramatically. That was all they needed to finish the night off nicely: driving round with the windows rolled down, calling for Castiel like he was a lost pet.

He cleared his throat awkwardly, banishing the mental image and chancing a look at Gabriel. The archangel was rigid in his seat, glaring at nothing in particular, and for a confusing moment Sam almost felt sorry for him.

“Look... Cas doesn’t... He’s just worried. I think he misses Dean.” Sam could sympathise.

Gabriel, though, shot him an amber eyed look of fury. “I think he wants to fuck Dean,” the archangel countered viciously. “And I think he’s mad because you told him he couldn’t go running into your brother’s open arms. That doesn’t give him the right to take it out on me.”

Sam sighed and bowed his head in defeat as yet another angel stalked past him. Oh yeah. This was going to be awesome.

xxx

When they finally found a motel they could afford with what was left of the money, it turned out Gabriel didn’t know how to sleep, to Sam’s utter exasperated amazement. They were in a room with two queens, which Sam had generously surrendered to the angels while he took the couch, and Gabriel still hadn’t mastered the trick by the time it had gone half one in the morning. He’d moved on to keeping Sam awake as well by speaking at random intervals, not even bothering to whisper.

“This is boring. You seriously just lie here doing nothing for eight whole hours every night? Why?”

“Shut up, you’ll wake Cas.” He rolled over, thumping a thin pillow in frustration. He’d caught sight of a newspaper in the lobby when they’d first checked in. It was early December, about four months after he’d died. He wondered if that meant he’d been in Hell for forty years, like Dean. He had no idea, remembered Stull literally as if it had happened yesterday. Probably lucky, all things considered.

“Hey Sammy?”

Four months that Dean would have been living with Lisa and Ben, making a life for himself. It’d be Christmas soon. He’d probably be getting them presents. Real presents, ones he’d actually paid more than a dollar at a gas station for. He wouldn’t have to steal toys for Ben like he had for Sam. He’d-

“Sam!”

“...What.”

“Oh, were you doing the sleeping thing? Sorry. Just wondering what the plan for tomorrow is.”

“The plan is research,” he answered shortly. Because he had two human angels on his hands, and the sooner he figured out how to give them back the power to disappear from his life, the better.

“Uh huh. And you really think it’ll be as easy as surfing a few web pages, do you? Not a lot known about angels, kid, and there’s even less known about resurrected, inexplicably human angels.”

He sighed loudly. “I realise it’s not going to be easy, Gabriel. Now just... try to go to sleep, please.”

There was a brief bout of quiet, during which Sam lay listening to Castiel quietly snuffle into his pillow. It didn’t last long.

“Alright, look. You know I’m the last person to sing his praises, but maybe now would be a good time to rethink your policy on involving your brother.”

“What do you care if I talk to Dean?”

Gabriel rolled over restlessly, propped up on one elbow to peer at him in the darkness. “Because the brothers Winchester deal with this sort of thing every damn Tuesday, and forgive me for thinking we could use the help! Not like either you or Castiel are going to get your heads in the game until you see him, and I would very much like to have the use of my wings again some time this century!”

Sam rolled his eyes. He should have known the archangel was only being self-serving. “This has happened to Cas before. He says it’s like needing your batteries recharged. It’s temporary.”

“And did he ever get his batteries recharged?”

Sam opened his mouth to snap a reply, and then stopped. He hadn’t, had he? Cas had still been all but human when he’d followed them to Stull. He’d died human and been brought back the same way. “...Huh.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed and he flopped back down onto the mattress. “Great.”

They considered this in silence for a while, and for the first time Sam wondered warily what he was going to do with them if this was permanent. He didn’t even know what he was going to do with himself. Keep hunting was the instinctive answer, but taking Cas and Gabriel with him? Cas, at least, had done the human thing before, and Dean had made sure to show him the basics in defending himself - but Gabriel? Gabriel might once have been Heaven’s greatest weapon, but currently he didn’t even know how to handle the normal human needs of eating and sleeping. It was seriously tempting to just drop him off somewhere with someone who had the time and energy to teach him, but that seemed kind of jerky, and despite every awful thing he’d done to them as the trickster, Gabriel had been a sort of unofficial member of Team Free Will, and he had pretty much died for them. Teaching him dietary requirements and cures for insomnia was probably the least he could do.

So hunting was out, at least for the moment. Maybe after he’d trained them up a bit, given a few self-defence lessons, but not right now. What did that leave? He could take them to Bobby’s. At the very least, the old hunter would just love having access to their combined encyclopaedic knowledge of anything and everything supernatural. But Bobby would also probably call Dean, no matter what promises Sam extracted from him, and even on the off chance he didn’t, word would inevitably go round the other hunters who used Bobby as a contact and eventually get back to Dean. So no. Bobby’s wasn’t an option either.

“Psst, Sam!”

“Jesus Christ - what, Gabriel?!”

“...No, seriously, we’re just supposed to lie here?”

Sam threw his pillow at him.

xxx

Morning was a debacle.

Castiel had a hangover, was nauseas and ill-tempered from the moment he woke up. Gabriel, unsurprisingly, was sleep deprived. There was only the one shower between three of them, with only Sam having any clear idea of how to use it, and no toothbrushes, razors, or anything else a normal adult male needed for a morning routine. Also, they were going to be kicked out of the motel at noon, and Sam had once again run out of cash. It really said something about what his life had become that his first thought was not where he could find a job but how long another fake credit card would take to acquire.

He pick-pocketed a guy in the parking lot on their way out to the car, took the cash from the wallet before handing it in as lost property to the motel clerk. Sliding back into the driver’s seat newly subsidised, he jumped slightly when Gabriel leaned over his shoulder, hair still wet from the shower and dripping cold water across the back of Sam’s neck.

“Well that was certainly one of your cooler moments. Little five-finger-discount, Sammy?”

Sam glared at him in the rear-view mirror. “It wasn’t ‘cool’, it was... necessary.” He supposed it wasn’t exactly smart to set a bad example for a rebellious archangel who really didn’t need one, and wondered desperately if it was at all possible to convince Gabriel to do as he said, not as he did.

Next to him, Castiel quietly buckled his seatbelt, smoothing it down over his rumpled trenchcoat. He was looking more dishevelled than ever since he’d had to redress himself without the use of angelic powers, and Sam suddenly considered what he was going to do about new clothes for them.

Oh he was so not cut out for this.

Dean would be, if he’d been with them. The knowledge made him want to laugh semi-hysterically. Who’d have thought? Dean was supposed to be the irresponsible one, the fighter, the swaggering James Dean wannabe with a sawed-off and a rosary. That was why they let Sam do all the talking to family members and the comforting of witnesses. But Dean was also the one who’d done this before, or at least something close to it. He’d practically raised Sam, and taking care of people was what he did best, never mind that he’d deny it heatedly if he ever heard it phrased like that. Point was, he’d know what to do with two brand new humans.

Sucked that they couldn’t ask him.

“Sam?”

“Huh?” He blinked himself back to attention, turning to find Castiel peering at him. “What?”

“I asked where we were going.”

“Oh.” He thought about it for a moment. “Uh. Is there anywhere you guys think we should go?”

Gabriel tapped him on the shoulder. “Take me to Vegas.”

“You’re not going to Vegas and I’m not your chauffeur. Cas?”

“I believe you and your brother would customarily begin by acquiring breakfast?”

Sam huffed a laugh. “Well, yeah. But I was thinking more long-term.”

“Ah.”

“Look. I don’t want to start making all the decisions for you, is all.”

Castiel turned his face to the window. “Does it matter? We have no destination, no objective. No knowledge of how to live like humans. As things stand, you are really the only one qualified to make decisions.”

Sam stared at him, concerned by the despondent note in the angel’s voice. He opened his mouth to say something possibly reassuring, but was spoken over.

“Hey, speak for yourself,” Gabriel complained from the backseat. “As you so delicately pointed out last night, one of us has a little experience -”

Sam scoffed incredulously, twisting around to deliver a sceptical look. “Your ‘experience’ consists solely of eating too many sweets, watching too much TV, and starring in the most disturbing porno I’ve ever been forced to look at - thanks for that, by the way.”

The archangel adopted an expression of bemused innocence. “What? You mean real life doesn’t work like that?!”

Half amused, Sam shook his head as he started the car and reversed. “Fine. Breakfast and research, if no one has any objections.”

“I have objections.”

“Yours don’t count.”

The archangel began to kick the back of his seat.

xxx

Being human officially sucked. It seemed to Gabriel that when you actually had to live it as opposed to just imitating it, you missed out on all the best parts.

He only half believed Sam when he said a constant excess of sugar wasn’t a plausible diet. Sure, Gabriel was peripherally aware that real humans regularly ate other foods and that there was probably a good reason for that, but personally he just didn’t see the appeal. Nor did he see the appeal in this whole sleep craze that Sam insisted was so necessary. He’d finally managed about two hours of unconsciousness in the motel last night, and had woken up feeling heavy and sluggish and dull-witted, his vessel aching in a thousand different places and ways. Gabriel had to marvel that humans could survive whole nights of sleep, if a mere two hours felt like being hit by a truck. He certainly wasn’t going to be trying his hand at it again any time soon.

Every one of his senses felt muted. They were dependant on the capabilities of his vessel, now, without angelic grace to transcend the flesh. He could only see what was right in front of him, instead of glancing casually through time and space whenever the mood took him. He couldn’t hear anything, and it turned out vessels were pathetically lacking in physical strength when they didn’t have phenomenal cosmic powers running through them. For the first time ever he was made conscious of his shorter stature, and it could be... disconcerting, to enter a room and realise everybody present had a physical advantage over him, even if only temporarily. As they spent the day passing through bustling diners and busy libraries and yet another overcrowded bar, he found himself starting to hover warily next to the man-mountain that was the youngest Winchester, only to curse himself violently whenever he realised what he was doing.

And by the end of the day, not a thing had been accomplished in terms of returning them to former glory.

They were checked into yet another motel a couple of towns over, this one just as tacky as the first. Gabriel, personally, didn’t have anything per se against ‘tacky’ as a décor, but this one was just plain unhygienic, as well. And he had to start worrying about that sort of thing, these days. In all honesty, he hadn’t seen why they couldn’t have stayed put, but Sam insisted they keep moving - apparently for no other reason than habit, since, as Castiel had so bleakly put it, it wasn’t like any of them had purpose or destination these days. The three of them had abruptly become surplus.

Sam had gone out under the pretence of bringing back food, although Gabriel suspected he really just wanted a little alone time. That was fine, the archangel thought to himself as he sauntered out of the bathroom. He’d been waiting all day for the opportunity to have a private conversation with his brother.

Castiel was sitting stiffly on the edge of the far bed, his back to Gabriel and a book in his lap. When Gabriel bounced down onto the mattress behind him and peeked over his shoulder, he could see it was a Bible that had been on the bedside table, and that his brother was currently scrutinising the Song of Solomon. He snorted, amused.

“Good little angels aren’t supposed to go around reading filth like that. It’s practically porn, you know.” He sprawled out on his back, one knee accidentally on purpose connecting with the other’s lower back.

“Then it is good that I am no longer an angel.” Blue eyes cast an irritated look down at him, before softening somewhat. “And the passage is not pornography. It is an expression of love and devotion.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes, unimpressed. “Jeez, you’re just thrill a minute, aren’t you? Remind me again how you ever got along with Winchester...”

Castiel gave him a wounded look, and Gabriel spent a moment debating whether or not to feel bad. Then he remembered he was still supposed to be holding a grudge against Castiel’s attack on him back at the bar, and decided fair was only fair.

“Dean and I share a... shared a profound bond.”

Silently, the archangel pretended to gag. “Okay, just so you know, I’m saying this as a guy who’s eaten nothing but processed sugar for the past hundred years: your disgusting epic love affair is giving me cavities.”

Unless he was imagining it, the corner of Castiel’s mouth twitched briefly upwards in what might have been amusement. “It was not a love affair, Gabriel.”

“Might as well have been...”

His brother tilted his head to a ridiculous angle, eyes squinted in obvious incomprehension.

Exasperated, Gabriel sat up and scooted so that they sat more or less side by side. “Can’t believe I’m about to have this conversation... Alright, fine. You love him, right?”

Castiel immediately tensed, his spine visibly straightening. “I love all of our Father’s creations -”

“Oh no, no, no. We can just skip the politically correct answer, thanks, as I’d like to get this over with so I can start pretending it didn’t happen. So. You love Winchester, more than an obedient angel of the Lord should, some would say.”

“We... share a unique history.” His gaze stayed fixedly on the Bible he held, studiously avoiding Gabriel while his fingertips absently traced the edges of lines. “I have held his soul and raised it from purgatory, rebuilt him body and mind. We rebelled against Heaven together, fought back Hell. Visited a den of iniquity. Such experiences have perhaps made us closer than is normal, but there is no... We are not in love.”

“...Uh huh. Look, I don’t have all the time in the world here, so let’s just skip straight past denial and on to acceptance, hm?” Gabriel gingerly patted him on the shoulder and attempted an encouraging smile. He wasn’t entirely certain it worked.

Castiel sighed, shrugging him off. “Is there a reason you’re suddenly so determined to convince me of my apparent love for a human I’m never going to see again?”

The archangel picked idly at a stain on his jeans, thinking. In fairness, Castiel was probably justified in being sceptical of his motives. Gabriel wasn’t well known for his altruism - and now was no exception.

Sam had dug his heels in on the matter of letting Dean know they were all alive again. He’d gone and convinced himself that his brother was off enjoying some parody of suburban bliss, which couldn’t possibly be touched by even a trace of supernatural for fear it would shatter on contact. Now, there were two problems with this line of thinking as far as Gabriel was concerned. One; no way in hell was Winchester the settling down type, whether Sam was willing to admit it or not. Two; it wasn’t going to help at all with turning Gabriel back into an angel. In fact, it was proving kind of detrimental.

They’d spent the entire day attempting to research the matter, and while he hadn’t exactly been expecting to make speedy progress, he would have appreciated Sam’s - or hell, even Castiel’s - full attention. But with Deano’s absence a great big looming distraction, he wasn’t even going to get that - which meant that Gabriel was never going to get his wings back, which in turn meant he was going to spend the rest of his existence choking down repulsive diner food and riding around in the back of stolen cars. No, the sooner they dragged Winchester back into the loving folds of Team Free Will, the sooner everybody was happy again and could start concentrating on what was really important around here: fixing Gabriel.

But he’d pulled out every persuasive trick in his arsenal to try and convince Sam of this reasoning, and been thoroughly ignored for his efforts. Sam didn’t trust him; barely liked him; was only tolerating him because he pitied him. There was no way he was going to heed any advice Gabriel deigned to give him.

So Gabriel needed an ally.

And Castiel wanted to return to Winchester maybe more than anyone. He just needed to admit it.

“I’m a romantic at heart,” he said at last, hoping he could sell it.

“Gabriel -”

“And hey, you’re family. Don’t get me wrong, as a little brother you’re kind of a sanctimonious pain in my ass, but...” He waved a hand vaguely, searching for the type of caring-sharing sentiment people said in situations like this. He came up blank, so quickly switched to a different tactic. “Let me ask you something: if you had a chance to say one thing to him, what would it be?” Castiel promptly opened his mouth to answer, but Gabriel held up a finger to forestall him. “And don’t go giving me something ‘normal’ and ‘appropriate’. I don’t care about what you think a human would say, or even what you think Deano would want to hear - I’m asking what you, Fallen angel of the freaking Lord, would want to say if you ever saw him again.”

This time, Castiel didn’t respond for a long time, just sat there preternaturally still, blue eyes moving again and again across the words of the Song. He was thinking, probably. It was completely possible his brother had never before had to consider anything of a personal nature he might wish to communicate.

Gabriel waited him out with gritted teeth.

Eventually, Castiel let out a breath. “I would say...” He hesitated, one finger tracing carefully across the words of the passage in front of him, and when he spoke again it was an intonation. “‘Set me as a seal upon thine heart, As a seal upon thine arm: For love is strong as death.’”

Valiantly, the archangel resisted his first instinct, which was to laugh until his ribs ached at the thought of how Winchester would react to that little declaration. Oh, but it was so very Castiel: pious and melodramatic and utterly earnest. He supposed he’d asked for as much, but that didn’t make it any less funny. It reminded him why he happened to like Castiel a damn sight more than he liked most of his other siblings.

“I think you just proved what I’m saying, bro,” he managed to say instead, with an impressive lack of sniggering. “You’re head over heels.”

Castiel smiled bitterly, glancing across at him. “It hardly matters. As Sam says, Dean has a life without us now. And even if he didn’t have Lisa Braedon, he would not, I think, look on me in quite the same manner.”

“You’d be surprised...” Gabriel muttered, rubbing an eyebrow tiredly. Louder, he added, “You don’t always have to listen to what Sam says, you know. Let’s face it: nice kid, but he doesn’t exactly have a history of impeccable judgement. Could be wrong on this, too.”

“Sam knows his brother very well...”

Gabriel rolled his eyes, leaning forward. “Yeah? He ever held his soul? No. He hasn’t. You have. And you know Winchester would want the two of you back if he knew you were alive -”

“Gabriel. Please.”

He sighed, deciding it was time to make a tactical retreat. He’d let the thought take root, and return to press the issue soon enough.

He clapped Castiel hard on the back, bouncing to his feet. “Yeah, okay. Should probably stop the girl-talk anyway, before we feel the need to braid each other’s hair or something.”

Castiel squinted up at him with genuine perplexity. “...Why would we braid each other’s hair?”

Part 2